Saturday, December 10, 2005

Venus on the Horizon

We don't often have clear skies this time of the year. Today was one of those cloudless, drop-dead gorgeous days. The temps were in the mid 50s. We opened the doors and let the brisk, but warming air in. We walked and photographed eagles and mallards. DPR photographed this tree in the bright sunny light against the blue, blue sky. When the sun set, we saw a bright planet on the southern horizon. It was definitely too big to be a star. We wondered which planet it was. DPR did a bit of research to identify the planet and found that it was, as we suspected, Venus.While he researched the planets, he found this image. I absolutely love this graphic of comparitive sizes of the planets and their distance from the sun. There's earth, third from the left (don't overlook tiny mercury). How little we are.